Month: December 2003

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” That opening line to the first amendment of the United States’ constitution is usually summarized as separation of church and state. A value equally cherished in France where different religions have traditionally coexisted in harmony. Whether in France…

Don’t even bother to ask if I am ready for Christmas. I’m not. I just can’t see how I can do it all … not when I keep losing my glasses. I need them to order gifts from Internet shops, to address Christmas cards and packages or to work on my Christmas projects. I would…

In an ancient bachelor game, the only qualification for potential brides was that their foot had to fit into a tiny glass slipper. In older versions of the fairy tale, Cinderella’s step-sisters took a butcher knife to their toes in a last ditch, useless, effort to make their foot fit. In a perfect world, the…

Shortly after I became engaged, my husband’s mother invited the family to meet me over Sunday dinner. She put an extra leaf in the old gray kitchen table and moved in chairs from the dining room. We may have eaten in the kitchen, but “she really put on the dog,” my fiancé exclaimed several times…

Our children each used to live in a different state along the Mississippi River. Then first one then another married, found a job and settled in Arkansas. Last month, a third’s job played out. He and his wife sold their house, took a long vacation which ended in El Dorado to wait on responses on…